NewsStudent LifeFaculty/StaffAlumniPre-K to 8AdvancementService
Recycling Center lauds second grade efforts
Nov 19, 2003 8:00 AM
By Stefan Eady - Faculty
The Rome-Floyd County Recycling Center recognized Darlington’s second grade and 13 other local businesses and organizations for their efforts in collecting 173,000 pounds of recyclable materials. Lower School principal Mark Tayloe received a framed certificate for the class’ efforts and presented it in front of the student body at the Lower School’s Thanksgiving Assembly in mid-November.
The second grade has been recycling for 15 years starting with a unit on ecology back in the 80s. Back then, the students brought their recyclables to school and went as a class to the recycling center to drop them off. When the project grew too large for the class to handle alone, parents and students began taking their own recycling to the center and bringing the receipts to class.
Now, incoming second graders begin recycling the summer before school starts to help them get into the habit. “We have accumulated a surprising amount of cash for our class projects by recycling,” Elaine Smith, second grade teacher, said. “We give money to the Toys for Tots program and the Lake Arrowhead Center for Environmental Education each year from the cash we earn for recycling.”
“(These) organizations have taken that extra step to keep recyclables out of the landfill,” Marta Turner, Rome-Floyd Recycling Center director, said at the center’s fourth annual Recycling and Waste Reduction awards programs. Donations by recipients saved the community $2,700 in tax money to maintain landfills where the materials would go otherwise, Turner estimated in the Rome News-Tribune article about the event.
She said $7,100 in revenue was earned for the center from the sale of the material to recycling markets. The center paid the organizations a half-cent per pound—or $10 per ton—for recyclable materials contributed and received from $35 to $80 per ton from the recycling markets.
The second grade has been recycling for 15 years starting with a unit on ecology back in the 80s. Back then, the students brought their recyclables to school and went as a class to the recycling center to drop them off. When the project grew too large for the class to handle alone, parents and students began taking their own recycling to the center and bringing the receipts to class.
Now, incoming second graders begin recycling the summer before school starts to help them get into the habit. “We have accumulated a surprising amount of cash for our class projects by recycling,” Elaine Smith, second grade teacher, said. “We give money to the Toys for Tots program and the Lake Arrowhead Center for Environmental Education each year from the cash we earn for recycling.”
“(These) organizations have taken that extra step to keep recyclables out of the landfill,” Marta Turner, Rome-Floyd Recycling Center director, said at the center’s fourth annual Recycling and Waste Reduction awards programs. Donations by recipients saved the community $2,700 in tax money to maintain landfills where the materials would go otherwise, Turner estimated in the Rome News-Tribune article about the event.
She said $7,100 in revenue was earned for the center from the sale of the material to recycling markets. The center paid the organizations a half-cent per pound—or $10 per ton—for recyclable materials contributed and received from $35 to $80 per ton from the recycling markets.
